OC Workers Resume Strike as Wage Talks Inch Toward Possible Deal

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — Teamsters representing Orange County waste and public works employees resumed their strike Thursday after the county declined to change its latest offer.

Union and county officials, however, continued bargaining Thursday, leaving open the possibility of a settlement in the wage dispute.

Subscribe

"Honestly, I think it's kind of close," Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner told City News Service. "That said, if it gets too much more generous, I'll be a `no' because we cannot afford it and we'll see if there's three votes for something."

Both sides were engaged in face-to-face talks with a mediator, Teamsters Joint Council 42 spokesman Christian Castro said.

"We're all hoping for the best," Castro said of negotiations. "It sounds like things are moving."

"The strike is not helpful," Wagner said. "We made what I consider to be a very generous offer."

Whatever comes out of the mediation, the supervisors are likely to consider it at their regular board meeting Tuesday, Wagner said.

"I think at this point the strike is counterproductive," he said. "It's costing the strikers money and the county money and there's little we can do. I think they should take the county's last, best and final offer, which would be a one-year deal, and we can revisit all these negotiations next year."

The Board of Supervisors met in closed session Tuesday to discuss the dispute but made no announcement. The board also held a special meeting Friday without announcing a resolution.

Before Thursday, the strike was on hiatus from picketing so waste haulers could use the county's landfills without crossing a picket line, Board Chairman Doug Chaffee said last week. The pause eased pressure on temporary sites where companies hold garbage before taking it to the county's three landfills.

Castro said the union agreed to suspend the strike as an "olive branch of good faith."

Chaffee said Tuesday the union has not made a counter-offer.

"They're talking about going to mediation to try to understand what their bottom line is," Chaffee said. "We don't know. The strange thing is we've asked them to put it in writing, but they don't want to do that.

"Instead, they want to try to do it through mediation. So I guess the mediator will go back and forth... We made a last, best and final offer that exceeded (the cost of living allowance) along with a couple more holidays in the offer, which all have some value."

Whatever deal is hammered out, it will run through the end of August and have to be renegotiated again, Chaffee said.

Orange County Board Vice Chair Katrina Foley told City News Service on Monday the county needs "to reduce the anxiety for (the workers) and get people back to work."

Foley noted that sales tax revenue continues to grow 2.7% on average, "so that's good news, but the bad news is inflation and the cost of goods and the cost of labor and health insurance have all increased above that 2.7%. So we'll have to be very cautious as we move forward. We're all in the same boat. Everyone is suffering from increased costs."

Wagner has noted the county's finances are tight, especially since it had to pay out millions of dollars in settlements for the Airport Fire.

"We're really stuck because we have dwindling resources," he said.

"Next year, there will be a new supervisor in District 4," Wagner noted. "We're also looking for a new CEO, and the third thing is we'll have a better handle on next year's financial situation. This is not a great time for big, monumental decisions."

Orange County CEO K.C. Roestenberg took over for Michelle Aguirre when she retired and is not expected to stay in his job for many years, Wagner said.

"Likely, with a new board in January, we'd pick up the search again," Wagner said.

The other issue for the county is that if it sweetens an offer to the Teamsters, it must do the same for all the other unions in the county, Wagner said.

"Everything we do for one has to be shared with everyone else," Wagner said. "Even a small deal with the Teamsters -- and it would be small -- has this magnifying effect across the entire county. It really does limit the board's ability to do something."

County and union officials also got into a back-and-forth over the Teamsters' picketing tactics. The county filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board alleging the picketers were breaking the law with "human chains" and blocking traffic while also falsely telling customers the landfills were closed.

Teamsters officials countered that the allegations were untrue and accused county officials of violating labor law themselves.

"We have pictures and statements from (waste hauling) drivers, but I guess that's all in our imagination," Chaffee said of the evidence the county has presented for its case.